Does even a little Overclocking results in a hit in longevity?

Hi
when the new Intel CPUs come out I will be looking to build my first home built PC. At that time I will have questions in the appropriate forum for that purpose. But there is a question I have now in regarding how to read the information on motherboards and other new parts as this information becomes available. I am not a gamer but will be building a PC for transcoding videos and as a multimedia PC. I am also very concerned with making my new build last as long as it possibly can. Watching some YouTube videos the motherboad manufacturers feature a featurer of a simple one button overclock mode, that sounds simple enough even for me to do, but will any overclocking even a small amount result in a hit on longevity of the system. I have no need for a gaming computer, but the fastest possible transcoding for the money will be a good thing as long as it does not hurt the longevity of my computer. So I repeat the title of this thread.

Does even a little Overclocking results in a hit in longevity?

As long as you stay under manufacturer's max recommended CPU core voltage and under the recommended max temperatures, your system is more likely to become totally obsolete long before it fails from overclocking side effects.

The hottest that my 2500K reached @4.8GHz and around 1.4-1.45v was 80-82. The "TJMax" of that processor is 98deg. I have heard that to be extra safe running the processor ~20deg below the TJMax at heavy load will be okay, which is why I backed off the 4.8 overclock and now have it at 4.5. I am using a Hyper 212+ cooler in a Fractal Design Arc Midi case (comes with 3 fans, with room for 6 or 8 total).

Different ways to overclock (these may vary among different mobos, which board are you looking at?):
1. On the ASUS mobo I have, flip the TPU switch to enable the board and BIOS to automatically adjust baseclock, multiplier, and core voltage for overclock of ~4.3GHz. Personally, I have heard a few negative things about messing with the baseclock, but maybe it is perfectly safe. Some people warn against letting the board run auto, as it may use a little more voltage than absolutely necessary for a given clock speed, but if you leave the voltage adjustment on Auto, the voltage will drop down when idling.

2. Adjust the cpu ratio (multiplier) manually, but leave the voltage on full auto.

3. Adjust the cpu ratio manually, and adjust the core voltage manually - this lets you set a voltage, which enables fine-tuning - you may be able to get a stable overclock from less voltage than the board would apply automatically. Note: if you manually enter in a core voltage value that is what the system will run at all the time - the voltage will not step down along with the clock speed when idling.

4. Adjust the cpu ratio manually, apply an offset to the voltage; I tried this, but even the smallest increment offset somehow lowered the voltage more than it should have, and I wasn't getting stable overclocks.

5. There are a whole slew of other adjustments like changing your DRAM timings, and load line calibration - I leave all that stuff on the default values for now.

This is good advice. I recommend offsetting the voltage while adjusting the CPU ratio (multiplier). To achieve 4.6GHz with lower voltages than auto produced, I first offset by a negative amount. This led to unstable overclocks. So, I went the other way and applied a positive (+) offset, and that seems to work the best, I have found. Leaving it on auto, the BIOS wanted to apply ~1.38v or so to hit 4.6GHz. With the (+) voltage offset (I did .050, in this case), I was hitting the same overclock with ~1.304-1.312v, and sub-70 temps after running Prime95 for a couple of hours. I think I like the offset method the best, because it allows the voltage to scale back down when the processor idles.

After tuning the multiplier and voltage, you could try other things like adjusting the timings on your RAM, if you really wanted to experiment more, but I haven't tried any of that yet, so I am not sure of the advantages.

If I weer going to get a case costing less that $100, I get one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811119216

Overclocking will let you do two things:
1. Stretch the useful service life of a system.
2. Increase the performance one or two speed bins beyond stock.

I stress test my overclocked systems for 24 hours with Prime95. Puts a 100% load on all the cores in the CPU. About 15 minutes of that will drive core temps to the max. After that, I go into BIOS in the PC Health tab and set the thermal warning to 70 C. The system will generate BIOS type beeps if it overheats.

No. Not what I said. And not what the poster meant about the 212+ (although I do agree with him).

First (in sort of backwards order), there are plenty of coolers better than the 212+. But they all cost significantly more.
http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm
The 212+ is not even in the top 10. And everything that is costs more.

Second, you need a combination of a good cooler and good airflow threough the case. Once the cooler extracts the heat from the CPU, the airflow through the case removes the warm air from the case. This will require several fans.

I use Antec 900 cases. They come with 4 fans - three 120 mm fans (2 front, 1 rear) and one 200 mm fan on top. It also has provisions for adding a side fan. I did some testing, and in my case, adding the side fan had an adverse effect on cooling.

Third, I said that if I were going to get a case costing less than $100, I'd get a CM690II. I wouldn't get an NZXT case, but that is personal preference.

I personally don't like Frostytechs reviews, I tend to leave them as a last resort.

I would always tend to lean towards Xbitlabs and other similar sites that cover all hardware.

Heatsink reveiws are erratic anyway - depends on application of Thermal Paste, different room temperatures, etc etc - so I look at 3 - 5 reveiws of one cooler before making my decision.

In terms of case choice, I agree with jsc, the CM690II is probably one of the best sub $100 cases. I would lean more towards the Antec 300 Illusion if you can pick one up for ~$100 though. Either one is a good choice.